Two Years After Disappearance, Natalee Holloway's Mom Remains 'Hopeful'

"It's been a long, painful journey," she said of the time span since her 18-year-old daughter, Natalee Holloway, vanished in Aruba.

"But I still remain hopeful that I will get an answer, she said on Greta Van Susteren's 'On the Record.'

The mother said that she keeps in contact with Natalee's classmates, and that combined with faith maintains her strength.

Another thing that maintains her hope: the continuing search for truth.

"I think it has picked up lately," the mother said of the case.

Holloway, from Mountain Brook, Alabama, vanished in the early hours of May 30, 2005, the last day of a five-day vacation to celebrate her high school graduation with 124 other students.

She was seen leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. The brothers were jailed and later released after a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to hold them.

Van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who has been attending college in the Netherlands, was also jailed and released. He has said he left Holloway alone on a beach after they kissed and he did not harm her.

At least 10 people have been arrested and released without charges. Hundreds more have been questioned.

The Dutch marines, the local coast guard, the FBI, hundreds of volunteers and others have scoured the island's dunes, beaches and trash dumps for Holloway. Scuba divers and sonar-equipped coast guard ships have also examined the seabed in the unsolved disappearance.

And just recently, the case began to heat up again.

Dutch and Aruban investigators on May 13 went to the house of the Kalpoe brothers investigators conducted what they termed an "inspection" of the property where Deepak and Satish Kalpoe live with their parents. The brothers were not arrested, however.

That came just more than two weeks after investigators from the Netherlands dug up earth for two days outside the home of Joran van der Sloot.

Paulus van der Sloot, Joran's father, told a Dutch television program that investigators seized diary notes and letters from him and his wife, as well as a personal computer that was returned later. He said he felt his privacy had been invaded.

Beth said that search — which she was not warned of due to Dutch laws — "probably hit me harder than anything else."

"That was probably the most difficult thing I've faced in this journey," because she knew that the investigators could be digging up Natalee's body.